Half of a Yellow Sun

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Changing Perspectives”

In this activity, students will choose a character to analyze by examining their actions and/or attitudes during a positive experience and comparing them to their actions and/or attitudes in response to witnessing violence and hunger. Students will then further analyze the character by conveying their perspective in a diary entry that details the impact of these negative experiences.

Throughout the novel, the characters in Half of a Yellow Sun witness The Horrors of War. Since the story is told through multiple characters’ perspectives, the reader has the benefit of observing and understanding how and why each character responds to these horrors differently. How do the violent events in the plot impact the characters, potentially changing them forever?

• Choose a character to analyze.
• Find a scene and passage in the novel that describes a positive memory or a happy time for your character. Pick at least three words or phrases from the passage that reveal the tone of the scene and feelings of the character.
• Find a second passage in the novel that describes a scene of violence, death, or famine that your character witnesses. Pick three words or phrases from the passage that reveal the tone of the scene and feelings of the character.
• Compare and contrast the two sets of tone words you identified, then discuss them with at least one classmate who picked the same character. In your discussion, use the details from the scenes and passages you selected to support your points and the changes you analyzed.
• Participate in a larger class discussion to analyze how different characters have changed for the better and worse throughout the story.
• Pretend that one year has passed since the war ended and write a diary entry through the eyes of your chosen character that discusses how life has changed and where they are now.

Teaching Suggestion: Starting with an introductory activity in which students describe a personal experience that changed them as individuals may be helpful. The partnered or small-group discussions about particular characters can provide students with an opportunity to build ideas and make connections before participating in the larger class discussion. You may consider structuring the larger class discussion by focusing on one character at a time, and having the small groups each share conclusions they’ve come to in their smaller group discussions. After the class discussion and written extension activity, you may consider allowing student volunteers to present their written diary entries to the class. 

Differentiation Suggestion: As an alternative to the diary entry, gifted students may prefer to compose a poem, song, or other artistic representation that symbolizes the changes felt by the character. Struggling students may benefit from more structure through sentence starters or a template such as the fill-in-the-blank “I am” template.